Lecture 1: Introduction
2026-01-20
Who I am:
I am a political scientist
I am a post-doctoral researcher, I work with Prof. Strijbis on his project DIVIDE
I am at Franklin since November 2025. Before, I have lived, studied and worked in Italy, the US, and France
If you are curious about my background, you can check my website
What I look for in this class:
I want you to learn about IPE
I want to communicate with you as much as possible during the course
How to reach me:
I want you to tell everyone, in a few words:
International Political Economy (IPE): the study of interactions between economics and politics in the world economy
There are different levels of analysis
Relations between states (states as “autonomous” agents): international institutions, treaties, organizations
Domestic sources of international politics: what drives states’ posture in relations between states
International sources of domestic politics: the reverberations of international events or shocks into domestic societies and electorates
IPE is a subfield at the intersection of political science and economics. We will look at the world through the glasses of analytical (quantitative) political science
We will learn how (many if not most) contemporary political scientist analyze complex macro-level phenomena
That is, dissecting them into component parts within a unifying framework: rational choice
In short: people, politicians, governments, states… (actors) have goals and motivations and behave (act) according to them. In order to understand their behavior we need to start from what drives them
The goal is to arrive at understanding of facts that is generalizable across space and time
Important: mathematical or statistical training is neither necessary nor required for this class. Our focus is on understanding and applying concepts
The final grade is based on
We incorporate in the course activities with external speakers @ Franklin
By the University’s policy:
More generally, you must reflect on the difference between using AI to help you learn and allow your your unique skills to emerge and using AI to pretend you have learned
We can view international political economy as the intersection of the substantive area studied by economics – production and exchange of marketable means of want satisfaction – with the process by which power is exercised that is central to politics.
Keohane (1984, Ch. 2)
The core actors are individuals as producers and consumers
Free trade is a “positive-sum” game which makes all parties involved better off
Free markets are the most efficient way to allocate resources
Economics and politics are autonomous domains (and should not be mixed)
The government’s role should be limited to setting “fair” rules of the game and provide public goods (e.g., property rights protection, defense…) so that the market can flourish
Absence of conflict is natural: mutual economic interest from trade prevents wars
The core actors are the classes: capitalists (owners of means of production) and workers (owners of labor)
The economic-political system is shaped by capitalism and conflicting economic interests
Politics is subordinated to economic forces
Capitalism expands globally to find new markets and exploitable labor \(\implies\) imperialism
Capitalism creates a hierarchical international system (core-periphery). This system maintains peripheral countries underdeveloped
Conflict is natural
The core actors are the states
States’ decisions are driven by power, its use and the desire to increase it relative to other states
Economics is subordinated to political forces
States can undermine free trade (e.g., reduce their engagement or monopolize parts of the economy) if this can strengthen their power vis-a-vis other states in other ways
Absence of conflict is possible if a single actor is so powerful to enforce rules \(\implies\) Hegemonic stability
The core actors are states
States have common interests, but self-interest prevents from pursuing it
They create institutions (codified “rules of the game”) to enforce cooperation for mutual benefit
Economics and politics interact thanks to the incentives and rational choices of states
Absence of conflict (cooperation) is not natural, but can be achieved
All traditional theories provide important, sometimes crucial, insights. Our approach will be to use the prevailing methodological framework in contemporary political science (and the defining methodological framework of economics): rational choice
Institutionalist theory is an example of rational choice
There are several advantages. We can incorporate some key insights of traditional theories incorporated
The rational choice approach is built on a few general postulates:
Of course we generally don’t know preferences or beliefs of others. We use assumptions about them to build models that can explain patterns of behavior. It is well understood that models are “wrong but sometimes useful”
Methodological individualism does not mean that we believe all people are selfish in a caricatural sense or have only material motivations.
For instance, we will see that it is difficult to understand the backlash against globalization without non-material concepts such as group, dignity, community, culture
Incorporating these concepts into rational choice is challenging, but many people (including the DIVIDE team) work on that all the time
We often need to “aggregate” up to the level of states or governments to understand IPE phenomena
Treating states as unitary actors in a model is equivalent to assuming that who runs the state has full mandate on international issues (or that only its preferences matter)
This may be justified or not, depending on the specific theory and phenomenon we want to explain
The RC approach helps us understand and evaluate constraints of high-level actors and the consequences of their actions
We will use the rational choice framework to understand the nature of problems that require international cooperation
That is, problems where “individual” incentives may clash with collective goals (trade liberalization, climate change, etc.)